Two Chinese judges from the 2018 Olympics are suspended by the ISU

[MAXSwagg]

Blablabla...

Well, what are your thoughts, Banana?

 

[ChiquitaBanana]

Well, what are your thoughts, Banana?

You are one of the least impartial when you make your comment but the first one to cry wolf and overgeneralizing. I got your point about the US judge and I haven’t checked her mark. You mght be right, you might be wrong... but in your outcry you seem to be such a victim in all of this cheating from everywhere..

 

[caseyedwards]

The Chinese Bias was so bad they needed to be singled out?! I don’t think so! China has been unfairly targeted.

 

[jiejie]

So as long as you don’t host the olympics, you are free to cheat?

Knock it off. That is not what I said at all.

 

[AxelAnnie]

I totally understand why the pairs judge was suspended.............and he/she deserved it. Obviously, Sui/Han were not scored high enough!

 

[MAXSwagg]

You are one of the least impartial when you make your comment but the first one to cry wolf and overgeneralizing. I got your point about the US judge and I haven’t checked her mark. You mght be right, you might be wrong... but in your outcry you seem to be such a victim in all of this cheating from everywhere..

Least impartial? I'm not a judge, Banana. And if you haven't even checked the marks of any of the judges, why are you even giving your one cent thoughts?

 

[Bellanca]

I know the discussion is quite serious - I understand that, but ... carry on!

 

[Vagabond]

If the Chinese judge in pairs was suspended for 1) a history of suspect marking, and 2) suspect marking during the Games, Lorrie Parker should be suspended as well because she is also guilty of 1 and 2, and as one can see from the protocols, her marks are even more egregious.

https://www.isu.org/communications/17359-case-2018-02-isu-vs-huang/file

The Alleged Offender has given for the Chinese couple Sui/Han a total of 21 GOE points in the Short Program. He scored each of the 7 elements with a GOE of +3, which none of his fellow judges did. He awarded the second highest scores in GOE to the second Chinese couple Yu / Zhang and the third highest to the Russian couple. None of the other judges gave the second highest GOE score to Yu/ Zhang. In contrast, the Alleged Offender scored the total GOE for the elements performed by the couple Savchenko / Massot (Germany) at 10 points, which is the lowest score compared to all the judges. He awarded the highest GOE of all competing pairs to the two Chinese pairs and the lowest GOE to the Canadian Pair.

From what I can tell, Parker's GOE marks for Chen and Hanyu were not clearly out of line with those of the rest of the panel, and she bunched her top five or six men in the FS fairly closely together. You've mentioned that she placed Hanyu fifth on PCS in the FS, but COP doesn't operate on ordinals, it operates on points.

Not proven, as they say in Scottish law.

 

[Marco]

I don't think China is being singled out. They just did it stupidly.

Figure skating judging is supposed to be subjective so cheating / bias is always defendable to a certain degree. And being outside the corridor isn't always wrong (Joe Inman), you just have to defend your position. It isn't until they do blatant things to the extent that they can't justify that they get caught.

 

[ChiquitaBanana]

Well, what are your thoughts, Banana?

You are one of the least impartial when you make your comment but the first one

Least impartial? I'm not a judge, Banana. And if you haven't even checked the marks of any of the judges, why are you even giving your one cent thoughts?

My comment was on your comments in general, and I have “checked” a lot so I feel more than free to give my “one cent thoughts”. You have just proved my point.

I do have checked the marks, not just analysing which judge was who. In the men’s event, you cannot get more blatant bias than that. One cannot even justify all of these +3. So evisent that something had to be done.

My point is that instead of being satisfied that for once national bias is sanctionned, that it is one step in the right direction, that a warning has been sent to the other judges, you go crybaby about other judges and put on the victim hat that NA judges cheat also. You sound like my 7 yo who tries to put the blame on others instead of taking her own responsabilities. That is a normal reaction at that age, but I guess you are older technically on official paper, aren’t you?

 

[ChiquitaBanana]

I don't think China is being singled out. They just did it stupidly.

Figure skating judging is supposed to be subjective so cheating / bias is always defendable to a certain degree. And being outside the corridor isn't always wrong (Joe Inman), you just have to defend your position. It isn't until they do blatant things to the extent that they can't justify that they get caught.

I wish I could have written this. My thought, exactly.

 

[overedge]

The full decisions are really interesting, especially the protocols with the suspicious judging highlighted.

I have to say, though, that I'm not completely convinced by the ISU arguments in both decisions that part of the case is proven by these judges' total scores being so remarkably out of line with the other judges' total scores. Obviously the out of line totals don't get to be out of line without some questionable marks being awarded, but IMO it's much more telling to look at the differences in marks on each element. That is the stronger part of the case for bias, and it could also be the more useful information for the ISU, if judges are consistently manipulating GOEs on particular elements or on certain PCS criteria. (Of course that would also require the ISU to do some meaningful retraining and/or reworking of how judges are instructed to arrive at those scores, but, hey, I can dream )

I'm also kind of uneasy with the "national bias" argument. Yes, the judges did give unreasonable scores for skaters from their own country, but....why not just call it "bias" and be done with it? There can be unreasonable bias toward skaters from the same country, and there can be unreasonable bias toward skaters from a different country. Maybe the ISU only wants to punish judges who favor their "own" skaters, but IMO they should be investigating judges whose marks are way out of line with regards to any skater, regardless of which country the judges or the skaters are from.

 

[Willin]

The full decisions are really interesting, especially the protocols with the suspicious judging highlighted.

I have to say, though, that I'm not completely convinced by the ISU arguments in both decisions that part of the case is proven by these judges' total scores being so remarkably out of line with the other judges' total scores. Obviously the out of line totals don't get to be out of line without some questionable marks being awarded, but IMO it's much more telling to look at the differences in marks on each element. That is the stronger part of the case for bias, and it could also be the more useful information for the ISU, if judges are consistently manipulating GOEs on particular elements or on certain PCS criteria. (Of course that would also require the ISU to do some meaningful retraining and/or reworking of how judges are instructed to arrive at those scores, but, hey, I can dream )

I'm also kind of uneasy with the "national bias" argument. Yes, the judges did give unreasonable scores for skaters from their own country, but....why not just call it "bias" and be done with it? There can be unreasonable bias toward skaters from the same country, and there can be unreasonable bias toward skaters from a different country. Maybe the ISU only wants to punish judges who favor their "own" skaters, but IMO they should be investigating judges whose marks are way out of line with regards to any skater, regardless of which country the judges or the skaters are from.

ITA. I didn't think I'd enjoy reading these as much as I did!

Yeah. The GOE part was pretty convincing. I think the fact that they had all other judges from a variety of countries give feedback that supported their thinking on the out-of-line scoring was also interesting.
The most interesting part for me, though, was them talking about the GOE bullet points in Jin's marks. I wonder if they took a look at her note sheets, assumed she awarded wrong bullet points based on the number of points needed for +3, or if they asked her to justify her marks after the fact?

 

[bardtoob]

When I watch Nathan's actual skating, Lorrie's score are justifiable, even if out of line. Nathan did the criteria.

 

[libecha]

How about the French judge, Anthony Leroy? In his world, S/M were only 0.1 better than S/H and 0.4 better than D/R. And in his opinion, S/M's PCS at the GPF was 77.2, but with a better performance two months later, the PCS was 74. Somehow they managed to make the composition and interpretation worse without changing a thing!

 

[starrynight]

Reading the full decisions was interesting. It's interesting that the 'bias' was determined by reference to what the other judges awarded - not by any separate analysis of what was actually skated.

I mean, of course that's how it's going to occur, but it does show that once a team or skater starts generating momentum with GOE & PCS etc that the other judges have to move in line and start judging with the pack.

I'm also kind of uneasy with the "national bias" argument. Yes, the judges did give unreasonable scores for skaters from their own country, but....why not just call it "bias" and be done with it? There can be unreasonable bias toward skaters from the same country, and there can be unreasonable bias toward skaters from a different country. Maybe the ISU only wants to punish judges who favor their "own" skaters, but IMO they should be investigating judges whose marks are way out of line with regards to any skater, regardless of which country the judges or the skaters are from.

Yes, it's kind of odd because if you look at http://skatingscores.com and check the ranking of each skater by each judge, it is quite easy to see which feds are co-operating with each other.

 

[MAXSwagg]

You are one of the least impartial when you make your comment but the first one


My comment was on your comments in general, and I have “checked” a lot so I feel more than free to give my “one cent thoughts”. You have just proved my point.

I do have checked the marks, not just analysing which judge was who. In the men’s event, you cannot get more blatant bias than that. One cannot even justify all of these +3. So evisent that something had to be done.

My point is that instead of being satisfied that for once national bias is sanctionned, that it is one step in the right direction, that a warning has been sent to the other judges, you go crybaby about other judges and put on the victim hat that NA judges cheat also. You sound like my 7 yo who tries to put the blame on others instead of taking her own responsabilities. That is a normal reaction at that age, but I guess you are older technically on official paper, aren’t you?

I barely understood this, but again, you support some federations cheating but not others, Mr. Banana? I also don’t know why you’re getting vicious. I don’t like vicious.

I’ve also seen this behavior from Sissy Krick in pairs before but of course she was never investigated either.

 

[hanca]

Knock it off. That is not what I said at all.

Well, that’s what you implied, otherwise I am not sure what relevance the fact that they are going to host olympics has to do with the fact that they have been singled out.

 

[hanca]

Interesting how all those who were feeling so strong against Russia’s doping cheating are not feeling as strong about western judges cheating.

 

[starrynight]

Interesting how all those who were feeling so strong against Russia’s doping cheating are not feeling as strong about western judges cheating.

Well, I sort of get that plenty of people consider the judging cheating to be an actual facet of the sport? If people were so offended by cheating judges they would not have become such close fans that they would be posting on message boards.

Ice dance fans certainly view judging manipulation to be part of the sport. And plenty of ice dance fans would view it as a team's own fault if no judge wants to cheat for them lol. I think the terms are 'politicking', 'momentum', 'fashion' and 'favour'.

However, I think the novelty of the doping (and the general lack of relevance to figure skating) got a lot of people worked up.

 

[hanca]

Well, I sort of get that most people consider the judging cheating to be an actual facet of the sport?

Ice dance fans certainly do.

I think it is much worse if the judges cheat than if the competitors try to cheat.

 

[Deleted member 221]

I thought the Canadian ice dance judge (and federation president), Leanna Caron, should have been suspended immediately after the original dance, placing Virtue and Moir first and Weave and Poje second. In what universe is that even remotely reasonable, and what explanation exists other than national bias? This looks way worse, on so many levels, than anything China, Sharon Rogers, or Lorrie Parker did.

I do think there are unique circumstances with China's suspension: the judge twice marked up his own skaters while marking down their closest competitors, in close succession, in a really obvious way. In terms of cheating, this is L4. But why is the standard this high? Let's suspend the L3 cheaters like Leanna Caron (who should be excluded on account of her role as Skate Canada president, but Skate Canada lobbied against that change), too.

 

[giselle23]

Placing the double Olympic Champion 5th in the free skate is not blatant? In what world?! Also, she has a history. She did the same thing at 2017 Four Continents.

He was only single Olympic champion when she scored him. And when did they start using placements in IJS?

ETA: I just looked at the protocols for the 2018 Olympics Men's FS and Parker (judge #2) gave Hanyu (and Fernandez) higher PCS than Nathan. She gave Vincent considerably lower. So what is the problem?

 

[tony]

I thought the Canadian ice dance judge (and federation president), Leanna Caron, should have been suspended immediately after the original dance, placing Virtue and Moir first and Weave and Poje second. In what universe is that even remotely reasonable, and what explanation exists other than national bias? This looks way worse, on so many levels, than anything China, Sharon Rogers, or Lorrie Parker did.

She had W/P 3rd in the SD, but 2nd in components.

She also opted to place Weaver/Poje 3rd in the free dance (with PCS scores just barely behind the French), and Gilles/Poirier 5th.

I thought that was way too blatant of a push, too, but 'it's Canada...'

 

[Erin]

I thought the Canadian ice dance judge (and federation president), Leanna Caron, should have been suspended immediately after the original dance, placing Virtue and Moir first and Weave and Poje second. In what universe is that even remotely reasonable, and what explanation exists other than national bias? This looks way worse, on so many levels, than anything China, Sharon Rogers, or Lorrie Parker did.

I do think there are unique circumstances with China's suspension: the judge twice marked up his own skaters while marking down their closest competitors, in close succession, in a really obvious way. In terms of cheating, this is L4. But why is the standard this high? Let's suspend the L3 cheaters like Leanna Caron (who should be excluded on account of her role as Skate Canada president, but Skate Canada lobbied against that change), too.

Caron was high on my list for suspension too, and that was when I thought she had Weaver & Poje third in the short dance (but I see you are correct that it was second because she had them tied on PCS with Papadakis & Cizeron and one point higher on TES). Do we know whether she was given any sort of warning the way Huang apparently was after the GPF?

I agree with several posters in this thread that Chen is the most egregious example and I don't question why she was suspended at all. Huang is a different case and I have a couple of theories of why Huang might have been suspended when Caron/Rogers/Parker haven't been yet. One would be that if Huang's judging had been in isolation, it might have been let go, but combined with Chen's, the ISU wanted to send a strong message to China that this kind of thing won't be tolerated. The other theory is that after Huang was already given a warning after the GPF, he was basically at a point where there was zero tolerance. That said, some of the other judges mentioned in this thread should be at that point now.

Reading the full decisions was interesting. It's interesting that the 'bias' was determined by reference to what the other judges awarded - not by any separate analysis of what was actually skated.

I mean, of course that's how it's going to occur, but it does show that once a team or skater starts generating momentum with GOE & PCS etc that the other judges have to move in line and start judging with the pack.

Yes, this part is frustrating. I think that the statistical analysis re deviation from the panel is interesting, but super flawed. I look at skaters like Tarasova & Morozov who had a massive boost in GOEs and PCS between 2016 and 2017 or Stolbova & Klimov midway through the 2013-14 season. What if you are the one judge that saw the beauty of Tarasova & Morozov's elements before everyone else in 2016 or the judge that realized their programs were still craptacular in 2017?

 

[VGThuy]

Would this have happened if there was still blatant bias but the scores were within the corridor? I remember tons of talks that judges should be free to judge outside of a perceived corridor but then I don’t think people were advocating to let them do it in this way. Either way, there are so many judges that need to be reviewed where the problem is really institutional and part of the culture of skating. No one individual or individuals are really at fault for the judging issues our sport has because it’s a part of the “game”.

 

[Rhino]

I agree with several posters in this thread that Chen is the most egregious example and I don't question why she was suspended at all. Huang is a different case and I have a couple of theories of why Huang might have been suspended when Caron/Rogers/Parker haven't been yet. One would be that if Huang's judging had been in isolation, it might have been let go, but combined with Chen's, the ISU wanted to send a strong message to China that this kind of thing won't be tolerated. The other theory is that after Huang was already given a warning after the GPF, he was basically at a point where there was zero tolerance. That said, some of the other judges mentioned in this thread should be at that point now.

If you look at the figures you'll find Chinese judges judged their own skaters on 14 occasions at the Olympics. On 12 of these they placed their skater 1st out of the 9 judges, and on the other 2 they placed them 2nd and 4th.

This was by some way the worst of the major skating countries. Not to excuse the others - Canada gave their own skaters an average position of 1.86 (8 1st's, 12 2nd's, 1 3rd, and 1 6th), and the USA was not far behind with 2.05 (9 1st, 5 2nd, 4 3rd, and 2 5th). They just weren't quite as terrible as the Chinese (plus the marking down of other countries skaters was something to behold - especially in the pairs).

 

[clairecloutier]

Having read the decisions and looked at the scores, I think the ISU is justified in finding that these judges showed national bias at the Games.

The case of Weiguang CHEN in the men's event is clear-cut. Her scoring of Jin was so far outside the norm of the rest of the judges, it's almost comical. A total 9-point GOE margin in the free skate? A 2.5+-point PCS advantage over Fernandez and Uno? She might as well have put on a pointy hat and a "guilty" sign.

The case of Feng HUANG in the pairs event is less obvious, but I think the problem here is primarily his scoring of Sui/Han vs. Savchenko/Massot. Going in, these 2 were considered the most likely candidates and rivals for gold. In the SP, he gave Sui/Han higher GOE than any other judge, while giving Savchenko/Massot lower GOE than any other judge. It was almost the same in PCS. Red flag. Then in the FS, he still gave Sui/Han a 1-point GOE advantage over S/M despite the fact that S/H had 2 visible errors (sbs jump combo, sbs 3S) vs. 0 for S/M. AND he gave Sui/Han a 2.25-point PCS advantage over S/M (arguably too great). When you look at how he scored just those 2 teams, it's very questionable. When you add in some preferential scoring for Yu/Zhang, plus the fact that he was already under warning, I think there is arguably cause for action here.

Some other questions that have been raised:

--Should they have investigated other judges, and not just the Chinese judges? IMO, absolutely Yes, if there was evidence to do so. I am not familiar with the Caron case, but it sounds very shady. I took a look at Lorrie Parker's marks in the men's free skate. What stood out in Parker's scores was relatively high scores for Chen, relatively low scores for Hanyu, relative to the other judges on the panel. Parker's scoring of the other top men seemed in line. I can see a case for a possible warning to Parker. But I'm not cognizant of all the criteria for warnings vs. suspensions. And Parker only judged 1 segment of the event--which means there is less clear evidence of bias, perhaps, than if she had judged both segments.

--Is it suspicious that the ISU only issued judgments against Chinese judges and not any other judges? Yes, it does seem odd. Although I don't know why the ISU would want to "hurt" the Chinese federation. The Chinese are big players in both figure skating and speed skating. They host quite a few events in China, including even Worlds recently. How does it help the ISU to get on the bad side of China? The only motivation I can see is if they feared the Chinese would engage in 4 years of questionable judging to try to position their athletes for medals in Beijing, and wanted to nip it in the bud?? (This is pure theory.)

--Was the punishment too harsh? Tough call. The most recent case of judge discipline was one of the judges at Golden Spin last year. She got a 1-year suspension, but it was retroactive to the date of the offense (not the date of the ISU case), so in effect, she only really got a 6-month suspension. So these suspensions are more harsh, particularly Chen's. At the same time, the punishment for the Golden Spin judge was kind of a joke, as most of her effective 6-month suspension was during the off-season anyhow, when there weren't even any events to judge. Ultimately, I think Feng's 1-year penalty is tough, but maybe appropriate. Chen's is much harsher (2 years and cannot judge Beijing Olympics), BUT, she screwed up really obviously and on the biggest stage in the sport. When you look at it that way, I feel like the punishment is harsh but not undeserved. It's the Golden Spin judge's punishment that was insufficient IMO.

As a final note, there was a lot of odd judging in that pairs free skate, particularly in PCS. I'm just glad the right couple came out on top.

 

[giselle23]

Least impartial? I'm not a judge, Banana. And if you haven't even checked the marks of any of the judges, why are you even giving your one cent thoughts?

Here are the top five PCS marks for the men's free skate at the Olympics (p. 12). https://www.isu.org/communications/17361-case-2018-06-isu-vs-chen/file
Judge # 2 (Parker) gave Hanyu the second highest PCS after Fernandez. After that, Uno and Chen (tied) and then, Jin. Fernandez, Hanyu, Uno and Chen are all within 2 points of each other. Where is the nationalistic bias in that? For GOE, she had Fernandez first (27), Chen second (22) and Hanyu third (15). Those results are a bit more questionable, but what would be the point? Chen was pretty much out of the running for the podium. Ironically, the Chinese judge counter-balanced her scores by giving Hanyu 22 and Chen 15.

 

[SamuraiK]

The problem is the damn corridor.. the USA and CAN judges were obviously playing their game but between the range of deviation (ordinals do not matter unfortunately). CHN judges were very naive to score waay outside the corridor.